The Abuse of Prophecy: By Apostates

I want to begin with a paradox: We worship a God of prophecy and yet we either abuse or ignore the Prophetic Word.

That our Creator God is a God of prophecy is firmly established by a proclamation which He made through Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 46:9-11):

…I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, “My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure… Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.”

This passage makes it clear that the God of the Bible has the knowledge to predict the future, the audacity to proclaim it in advance, and the power to see that what He predicts will come to pass.

Being a God of prophecy is one of the many proofs that the God of the Bible is the one and only true God. This was emphasized through Isaiah on another occasion when God spoke through him to mock the false gods made of wood and stone (Isaiah 41:21-24 LB):

“Can your idols make such claims as these? Let them come and show what they can do!” says God, the King of Israel. “Let them try to tell us what occurred in years gone by, or what the future holds. Yes, that’s it! If you are gods, tell what will happen in the days ahead!… But no! You are less than nothing, and can do nothing at all. Anyone who chooses you needs to have his head examined!”

A Sad Heritage

Yet, despite the fact that the God of the Bible clearly establishes His credentials as the one and only true God by pointing to and emphasizing His prophetic powers, the Church has a sad heritage of both ignoring and abusing prophecy.

In fact, there is probably no other portion of the Bible that has been more ignored and abused in the Christian heritage than the prophetic scriptures.

Prophecy has been abused by apostates, spiritualizers, and fanatics.

The Apostates

The apostates are those so-called believers who mock the very idea that the Bible contains prophecy. They, in fact, hate prophecy with a passion because they reject the truth that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Rather, they argue that it represents Man’s search for God and therefore is full of legends and superstitions.

If there truly are fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, then the book would have to be supernatural in origin. Since they are unwilling to admit that, they steadfastly refuse to admit that the Bible contains prophecies. They either write off prophetic passages as “poetry” that has no literal meaning, or they argue that the prophecies were written after the events they prophesied.

This is the reason that the book of Daniel has been so castigated by liberal apostates. In the book, Daniel precisely prophesies a whole sequence of world empires. He also prophesies many events that occurred during the inter-testamental period between the close of the Old Testament and the writing of the New Testament. The apostates dismiss Daniel as a fraudulent book that was written 500 years later than it purports to be.

Of course, this allegation about the book of Daniel flies in the face of the fact that Jesus quoted the book and treated it as sacred scripture (Matthew 24: 15-22).

I had a rather brutal, first-hand experience with this attitude in the early 1980’s when I was asked to speak at a mainline Protestant denomination in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. After a few words of introduction, I asked the congregation to turn to the book of Daniel. The pastor, who was sitting on the front row, suddenly jumped to his feet and protested: “We don’t allow the book of Daniel to be read in this church.” When I asked why, he sneered at me and said, “You obviously are not a seminary graduate, because if you were, you would know that the book of Daniel is a fraud.”

In the next part of this series looking at the abuse of Bible prophecy, we’ll see how its credibility has been tarnished by the spiritualizers and fanatics.

Dr. David Reagan

Dr. David Reagan serves as the Founder and Director of Lamb & Lion Ministries. He is a life-long Bible student, teacher, and preacher whose sermons have been distributed worldwide and has led 45 pilgrimages to Israel. Dr. Reagan is the host of the television program Christ in Prophecy.

Double Dittos!! Yes he does, but no where near the cherry-red fire & brimstone reserved for his "Semetary Professor" who has led full class after full class into such ungodly, disbelieving error and apostasy!

1st of all, proper logic alone tells you that the OT Canon was closed about 400BC and the Jews, as a whole, accepted Daniel as an authentic part of the Word of God up until about 200AD. It began to seriously dawn on the occultic Babylonian Talmudic Rabbis [who opposed Jesus in His time], about that time, that Christianity wasn't withering away as they had hoped, but rather, was continuing to spread in spite of persecution, and they began a concerted effort to undercut the prophetic foundations of Christianity with lies and deliberate misinterpretations of the OT, such as claiming that "alma" [Isaiah 7:14] more commonly meant 'maiden', not virgin, when there in not one shred of Biblical or extra-biblical writings that show it to ever mean anything other than 'virgin'!

Furthermore, in the recent history of the last century, we have the monumental scholarly works of the incomparable Robert Dick Wilson who mastered 45 ancient languages & dialects of the OT era to offer a 'scientific proof' of the veracity of the whole OT.

"…He authored a marvelous book titled, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, in which he confidently affirmed “we are scientifically certain that we have substantially the same [Old Testament] text that was in the possession of Christ and the apostles and, so far as anybody knows, the same as that written by the original composers of the Old Testament documents.”

I think when we use examples ( seminary graduates etc.) , we are in danger of judging all by some. This is unkind and unloving to all. You can't paint them all by some. I have noticed that alot of folks like to hear insults because they are jealous they didn't go to seminary. This is just as liberal (taking out jealousy, pride and judging from the bible) as taking out Daniel.

Anyways, Paul was pretty educated and that Robert Dick Wilson who was mentioned in a comment knew 45 languages and he was the finest hebrew scholar of his day. he fought liberals every step of the was in his job as seminary professor at Princeton and then Westminster.

To get back to my point, I wonder if God is happy if we prejudge all seminary students by some liberal ones. I am not typing to Dave , but to those who make fun of them by stating jokes and mispells.

I guess I would be just as guilty if I said that I have met many non-seminarians who went by feelings, personal views and other things and were wrong in many areas. I could say that I never knew the Holy Spirit to be so boring or in theological errors. But two worngs never make a right, only the Lord makes right.

It has been mentioned numerous times that the majority of our 'world class' universities were founded as Christian universities and seminaries but, like everything else under the curse, they go the way of the world and suffer corruption.

This does not in any way disparage the few institutions and professors who remain faithful to the Commandments of His Word, teaching truth and exposing and preaching against apostasy [kinda like wut Nathan and Dr Reagan do here]:

Titus 1:10-1210 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, **for filthy lucre's sake**… [a teacher, a professorship: a well-esteemed, well-paying… …job…]

2 Timothy 3:1-8"…5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away……7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith…"

And the Apostles didn't have a problem naming names either:"…And their word will eat as does a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus…" 2 Timothy 2:17"…Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil…" 2 Timothy 4:14

The point being made is that those that teach have the greater accountability, and hence, the greater judgment. The above mentioned "professor" who led that poor pastor astray will likely find himself in a place far worse than any cemetery, and "semetary" certainly describes his darkened heart [no joke intended].

And generally speaking, I find that most here are not in the habit of lumping others together and prejudging them, but rather, discerning the fruit thereof.[tempting…so tempting to qualify that "most here"… Bwaaaaa haaa haaa haa!]Ooops, I slap my hand!;-D

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Lamb & Lion Ministries was established for the purpose of proclaiming the soon return of Jesus. We do not believe it is possible to know the date when Jesus will return. But we do believe it is possible to know the season of the Lord's return, and it is our conviction that we are living in that season...